F
i r s t L o o k

A number of us greying types can remember the days when the Monday Night
Football crew consisted of Frank Gifford, Don Meredith, and Howard Cosell.
Although it got to be a trite conclusion, after a game had turned into a blowout
(which Cosell had been telling the audience for 30 minutes or so) Meredith would
crank up an off-key rendition of "Turn out the lights, the party's over..."

Such is the case for Tamiya's quarter-century-old M3, M5A1, and M8 kits, as with
the release of this first of a string of new kits covering US light tanks that
is the case for those shopworn old friends. This is a gorgeous new kit that
corrects every one of the major flaws that the Tamiya kits had, and even throws
in a complete interior. There are very few glitches on this kit of consequence,
which is truly a rare event.

To begin with, the kit literally drops over the Ordnance Museum 1/35 scale set
of blueprints for the M3 Light Tank (alas, no longer available) and has a SCALE
turret! (Tamiya's M3 turret was between 10 and 15% underscale, based on source.)
While this kit only comes with the welded octagonal turret, a second kit is
coming behind this one for the M3A1 with the "flat top" horseshoe turret and
some other changes.

The hull also has the correct curvatures under the lip of the bow, and
(surprise!) sponson floors under the sponsons. Length and shape issues have been
resolved as well. While the rear air intake vent is solid (no nylon screen is
included) it is easy to fix, and since it is a separate part there is also some
wiggle room to put an engine in view. (Based on the Academy M12 and the M10
series, I would be willing to bet Korean resin manufacturers got test shots of
the kits and will have the engines and corrected interior bits out quite soon.)

The kit comes with the modified armament for the M3, consisting of the bow,
coaxial, and AA .30 caliber machine guns, and the M6 37mm cannon. This gun is
slightly longer than the earlier M5, which was still quite common in most M3
variants, but those who wish to externally modify the gun should have no
problems. It will be tough to fit the model with an aluminum barrel, however, as
the gun is presented in full and mounts to the turret race and not to a set of
model-type swivels inside the turret. No "wing" guns are provided. One curious
thing is that while Academy has made the parts of the commander's cupola
separate, there is no detailing on the inside of the view ports, which will be
quite visible when the turret flap is open. The same goes for the driver's lower
entrance hatch flap. (I expect Eduard will have a brass set out for this and for
the various bits that keep the driver's and gunner's flaps open as well.)

The kit comes with a gorgeous interior, but alas, it is for the M3A1 version
with the turret basket. Apparently Academy's researchers did not tell them this
fact, even though it was stated in both the excellent R. P. Hunnicutt book and
the more affordable Osprey/New Vanguard one by Steve Zaloga. The basic floor and
seats are fine, but the ammunition stowage is all wrong for the straight 3 and
will have to be redone (there are several rectangular bins which were
optimistically expected to function as a floor for the crew). The turret
interior is also quite different.

The model comes with a choice of either CORRECT vinyl tracks (e.g. the teeth
join the links together, not fit at the end of each link as with the Tamiya M3
Stuart and M3 Lee/Grant kits) or three-piece styrene links, jointined in the
same manner as AFV Club and RHPS kits (note that the pins are shorter and you
may need cement to get them to stay on.) One nice touch: the kit provides 138
track pads but sufficient end connectors for 144, so there are 12 extra
connectors for those of us getting fat of fingers in our old age.

The model also provides a choice, more applicable to the apparently coming M5
series of tanks, of wheels. (I'm not omniscient, the sprues are marked "M3/M5"
so it's sort of simplified...) Two different drive wheels (solid disk or
sculpted), two idlers (open welded spoke or spoke with pie-shaped fillets in
them for late-war tanks) and spoke or pressed steel road wheels. The wheels have
a thicker tread which more approximates the actual vehicles, and is superior to
the skinny Tamiya ones. The bogies have the same parts breakdown as Tamiya –
spring rider, spring set, bogie sides, top, and track guide – but all are much
nicer and closer to the right size and shape, although the track guides are a
bit on the thick side. The idlers are much better done, and have a separate cap
for the HVSS spring inside the front of the mount.

While the model comes with the odds and ends needed for a British vehicle, such
as 2 gallon "flimsies" and some of the external bits such as the smoke mortars
with SMLE action and the map reading mounts for the commander's hatch,
surprisingly the kit only comes with a US SCR-510 type radio and not a No. 19
Wireless set. The now-standard "D" sprue is included, so Sherman and other US
armor fans get the bennies of another nicely done .50 caliber for the spares
box.

Four different markings options are provided: two for the 8th (King's Royal
Irish) Hussars, one US tank from the 80th Armored Regiment (Training), and one
Japanese tank captured in the Philippines. Other British markings are also
included for troop and tank variations, but only two serials (no "Tent Hat"
either...) However, I may be wrong but it appears that only one set of fender
markings is included; I do not know if it should have two but this has been a
problem with Academy sheets in the past. It does provide two different sets of
quick-identification stripes, at least.

Conclusion

This kit is yet another wake-up call for the Big T. They will either have to get
their act together and start correcting older kits to stay competitive, or
decide to give up on US armored vehicles and duke it out with DML for the German
armor market. Academy has cut sufficient molds to give them fair warning that
they will be going after the US Light and Medium tank markets, but Tamiya – for
whatever reason – has instead opted to compete with DML in the US WWII Heavy
tank arena (T26E3 vs. T26E3). While there are modelers who will ignore kits just
because "they're not Tamiya" (and in the case of this one and its coming
sisters, they'd be complete idiots for doing so) I wonder if they will sell in
sufficient volume. Tamiya just can't keep re-releasing the same kits from 25
years ago and expect them to sell when there is a superior kit from a more
aggressive competitor on the block.